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We are not mostly empty space

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Re: We are not mostly empty space

#51
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the author is saying fields are already filling things up, right? To compare this to the "we can pack them atoms tighter" model seems to be confusing the author's model with another, separate mental model, one in which we can fill up more. But the author's model says we're full. Full of this field stuff. Not so? IANAS

Yeah, they're probability distributions, not fields. So electrons, protons and neutrons are still tiny, even though their positions are uncertain. And so atoms are still mostly empty space.

Modeling electrons as tiny objects that have probability distributions has a weakness. There is no sensible value to assign to the 'tiny'. I mean there is no experiment to determine the 'size' of the electron.

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#52

Is it just me who found the technical description and analogy here lacking? There's nothing that suggests electrons are a cloud. Yes, a "cloud" defines the probability where they can be found, but electron doesn't occupy the cloud. Electron is always a point, no matter what wave function it has. Therefore, from this perspective space is all empty. If you invoke path integrals and infinitely many things bubbling in an…

I had pretty much the same reaction.

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#53

Is it just me who found the technical description and analogy here lacking? There's nothing that suggests electrons are a cloud. Yes, a "cloud" defines the probability where they can be found, but electron doesn't occupy the cloud. Electron is always a point, no matter what wave function it has. Therefore, from this perspective space is all empty. If you invoke path integrals and infinitely many things bubbling in an…

In QFT electrons are part of an electron field before you apply any quantum wave function weirdness.

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#54
> For non-quantum objects, this isn’t a problem, as different methods of measuring an object all give you the same answer. Whether you use a measuring stick (like a ruler), high-definition imaging, or a physics-reliant technique like Brownian motion or gravitational settling, you’ll arrive at identical solutions.

Right off the top, it's made clear this author doesn't know what he or she is talking about. From at least the time of de Moivre, around 1740, the problem of estimating an accurate true value from multiple differing measurements was recognized in its own right as a problem. By 1810, Gauss and Laplace had discovered the basics of statistical estimation, the form of the normal distribution, results including the central limit theorem, and regression techniques such as non-linear weighted least squares. Now, almost 200 years later, the problem still exists, and is being worked on in various forms and circumstances.

To give a simple example, take 1000 frames of well-exposed video of a still scene, with constant illumination, and constant exposure settings on the camera. Now try to estimate how many photons, within a constant multiplicative factor, are coming from each point in the scene. Most of the measurements will show a normal distribution, but at the extremes of exposure, something more complex is going on (perhaps to do with sensor non-linearity, censored sampling, or something else). This is one of the basic theoretical problems in HDR imaging, and is an active area research (i.e. unsolved, as of today).

It's very hard to get past that paragraph -- which is the first one in answer to the question "why?".

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#55
post #51
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they're probability distributions, not fields. So electrons, protons and neutrons are still tiny, even though their positions are uncertain. And so atoms are still mostly empty space.

Modeling electrons as tiny objects that have probability distributions has a weakness. There is no sensible value to assign to the 'tiny'. I mean there is no experiment to determine the 'size' of the electron.

OK, not a physicist.

But what about this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_electron_radius

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#56
post #11

Empty space, by definition, is space that can be filled by something. So how closely can atoms pack together? A neutron star has a density of 10^17 kg/m^3, whereas the typical human being is about 10^3 kg/m^3. I could fit the matter of trillions more human beings in the same space I'm taking up now. So yeah, I think there's some empty space in me.

yeah but are you still human then? It's like white space in a photograph or painting, it's part of the composition

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#57
post #25

How often do objects interact with our bodies when passing through us? Neutrinos, very rarely. The atoms of an aluminum bat, very commonly. Light? It depends. Something being "empty" or "full" all depends on spatial and energetic scale.

Yeah, the fact that neutrinos pass through us largely validates the notion that we are in fact mostly empty space.

But visible light can't get through us at all. Does that prove that we aren't empty space? The whole point is that this criterion is incredibly ambiguous.

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#58

Is it just me who found the technical description and analogy here lacking? There's nothing that suggests electrons are a cloud. Yes, a "cloud" defines the probability where they can be found, but electron doesn't occupy the cloud. Electron is always a point, no matter what wave function it has. Therefore, from this perspective space is all empty. If you invoke path integrals and infinitely many things bubbling in an…

The electron is both a particle AND a wave. So for practical purposes we must use words like clouds, or regions, or the electron is “spread out” Neither of the words capture the essence of what is truly going on, afaik.

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#59
So, in an atom, how much volume does the electron cloud occupy? It's more than the volume an electron occupies, but, in the upper end, does it occupy all the space from the electron to the nucleus? (And also because it is rotating, that space then occupies all the area surrounding the nucleus as well?)

Re: We are not mostly empty space

#60
post #11

Empty space, by definition, is space that can be filled by something. So how closely can atoms pack together? A neutron star has a density of 10^17 kg/m^3, whereas the typical human being is about 10^3 kg/m^3. I could fit the matter of trillions more human beings in the same space I'm taking up now. So yeah, I think there's some empty space in me.

Do atoms still remain atoms in a neutron star? don't they collapse to a soup of subatomic particles? serious question.
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